The University of Nebraska Medical Center will soon be home to a first-of-its-kind training facility specializing in air transport of people with highly infectious diseases.
On Friday, elected officials joined representatives of UNMC and the U.S. Air Force to break ground on the new Infectious Disease Air Transport, or IDAT, facility. It will be used to train healthcare and military personnel to safely transport patients impacted by high-consequence infectious diseases.
“It is absolutely critically important that we are ready, particularly in an era of geopolitical uncertainty that continues to progress in many different dimensions – multiple nuclear adversaries, at a time that artificial intelligence creates the possibility of weaponizing agents as quickly and inexpensively as has ever been possible,” University of Nebraska System President Jeffrey Gold said at the groundbreaking. “The time is right, the place is here, and the people are here, as well.”
Friday also marked the formal launch of the Office for the Advancement of Military Medicine, which will develop new initiatives in biodefense, military medicine and civilian-military health partnerships.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, Sen. Deb Fischer and 2nd District Rep. Don Bacon attended the groundbreaking, as did Omaha Mayor John Ewing. All lauded the IDAT facility as another step in cementing Omaha and UNMC as a world leader in biodefense and health security.
“We are the home of global health security,” Pillen said. “Nobody in the world does it better. And this is another extraordinary extension to take it to a whole ‘nother level.”
Planning for the facility began in 2023, with the University of Nebraska Board of Regents approving the intermediate design plan earlier this year. Multiple sources of federal funding will cover the construction costs, according to board minutes.
The training at the IDAT facility will primarily be led by members of the U.S. Air Force’s Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills, or C-STARS. C-STARS was established in 2018 as a joint initiative of UNMC’s Global Center for Health Security and the Air Force’s School of Aerospace Medicine.
U.S. Air Force Col. Elizabeth Schnaubelt, the Director of C-STARS, said the Air Force’s collaboration with UNMC has led to the “rapid development and operationalization of new biocontainment air transport capabilities.”
“When C-STARS was first established in 2018, we brought Air Force medical professionals to one of the best biocontainment units in the country and across the globe – and it was to embed ourselves alongside experts in this field, and to bring that expertise to our military members to build a symbiotic relationship,” she said. “Over the past years, we’ve grown because the people within this partnership have consistently been committed to our shared mission and willing to ask a very important question: What do we need to be ready for next?”
The IDAT facility will include the fuselage of a C-130 aircraft, a mockup platform for a Boeing C-17 and Negatively Pressurized Conex Lite unit – a modified shipping container with an advanced air filtration system used for air transport. Trainees will be able to utilize the equipment and aircraft that would be available in the field to learn procedures for the air transport of people exposed to high-consequence infectious diseases.
The building is scheduled to be ready for occupancy in late 2027. It will be located in what is currently a UNMC-owned parking lot near 40th and Mason streets.